Ever Improving Laptop

Every few months I see a new laptop that really impresses me, and Hanno submitted one that does that with room to spare. PaceBlade has a transmeta chip, PCMCIA, irda, USB and all the usual stuff... except that it features a removable ir keyboard, and can be used as a traditional laptop, or as a workpad sorta thing with a pen. Expected release around the middle of the year with a $2k price tag... I'm super skeptical of that price.

Comments

Laptops vs. Desktops

[istartedi]

About 2k, eh? Just about *all* laptops are about 2k. Sound familiar? Desktops were the same way until a couple years ago, then the major manufacturers finally started dropping price. At the time, I remarked that this might be a warning sign of "PC saturation" and I turned out to be frighteningly correct.

Laptops are still not saturated. As a consumer, I would like to see them saturate. They may be starting to a little. I have managed to find a few laptops in the $1000 range but I'd like to see major manufacturers advertising $600 laptops. That's right about my price point for a good new laptop.

It's really a shame that laptops didn't clone like the PC did. The race to see who can be thinner, lighter, more ergonomic has resulted in a slew of nonstandard parts. IIRC there were some standardization efforts but they were doomed in any attempt to produce something as useful as the ATX case/motherboard standard.

Anyway, I'm rooting for a "laptop downturn" to follow the PC downturn. If history repeats itself, a price war will precede it. I'm holding off on buying a new PC because I would like my next "PC" to be an affordable laptop with a docking station. Then I could have all the benefits of both stationary and mobile computing without having to buy two machines.